tag:www.schneier.com,2015:/blog//2/tag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-2015-05-13T02:17:49ZComments for When Technology Overtakes SecurityA blog covering security and security technology.Movable Typetag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1258100Comment from Howard on 2013-04-03HowardIf the U.S. can survive the destruction of an entire city -- witness New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina or even New York after Sandy ...
Give me a break. Neither event was anywhere close to "the destruction of an entire city." We're not talking smoldering craters, uninhabitable radiation, land swept clean, or even being set back a few centuries in living conditions ...

Even in the worst-flooded parts of New Orleans, much of the underlying infrastructure was repair-able. They didn't just tear out all of the old roads and sewers. And New York destroyed after Sandy? A laughable assertion. Yes, there was plenty destruction, but far, far less than many other major cities after a hurricane, and that's even taking into consideration how New York is generally less-prepared for a hurricane than Miami.

]]>
2013-04-03T19:58:50Z2013-04-03T19:58:50Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1238763Comment from John Hardin on 2013-03-25John Hardinhttp://www.impsec.org/~jhardin/
@Clive:

Are ceramics suitable for making hand guns, well that depends on what your design criteria are.

The most important design criteria is: can withstand a pressure of ~35,000PSI at a thickness of no more than 5mm.

Everybody who waves the ceramic (or plastic) gun bogeyman around always forgets (or intentionally ignores) the breech and barrel. It doesn't matter how undetectable the frame is if you still have to have a chunk of steel in the middle to actually be a functioning firearm.

How can you know a ceramic handgun is hard to detect with a metal detector or MRI? They don't even exist (ceramic handguns that is)

First off I would not assume ceramic handguns "don't even exist", or for that matter any other gun made from non metalic substances. The fact that they are neither publicaly advertised or sold does not mean that they are not manufactured or have been produced as prototypes for researching their viability.

As a general rule these days the properties of most materials considered suitable for 'engineering in' to prototype or production items are well characterised.

Are ceramics suitable for making hand guns, well that depends on what your design criteria are. They can certainly replace many parts without difficulty. However some parts would most definatly have to be either redesigned or use other materials. I have my own ideas on the redessign of some parts and whilst some items such as springs can be made with none metalic materials they do have sufficiently different charecteristics that questions about useful working life and preventative maintanence will arise.

The second is that terrorism, like so many other interesting things in science follows a feedback loop

Whilst there might be partialy true it is way more complex as it is also a feedforward process.

But at the end of the day dealing with terrorism tends not particularly to follow such models.

In essence there are two basic types of terrorist, "those from within your society" and "those from outside your society". The former are getting rarer these days for a whole variety of reasons thus we mainly consider those from outside our society.

It needs to be sstated at this point that what we call terrorists are usually from a technicaly less sophisticated nation/region than our society.

Such terrorists are usually only to aware of this and as such they have little or nothing to lose and everything to gain by being terrorists. Where as for the general population in our society we have everything to lose and very little to gain directly (I'll leave open the economic resource argument such as cheaper oil as in general it does not filter down in the way you would think).

When dealing with terrorist from outside of our society there are generaly three ways of dealing with them,

1, Not to be a target for them.
2, Genocide.
3, Give them something to lose.

Often the first option is not one the general populous has any control over. In fact history from before the conquest of Africa through to today sugests that various "commercial adventurers" will exploit other societies to a very high degree using various techniques that would be compleatly unacceptable in their home society (ie significantly and harshly punishable under law). And it is the blow back from the activites of the commercial adventurers which often gives rise to what we call terrorism.

On the face of it committing genocide on a nation where terrorists comes from should remove the problem of terrorism... Only two problems, firstly it's compleatly unacceptable to the home nation, the second it realy does not work for a whole host of reasons and the level of blowback is immense.

Which leaves us with the last option of giving the people with nothing to lose something to lose. That is if you establish a mutual dependence it's not particularly in either parties interest to attack the other.

--So, just curious. What do you suggest young people w/ maybe ~50 years of life or much less do if the majority of their economic opportunities are sucked up?

There are a number of options available (but not to all).

Firstly is to just accept the way it is.
Secondly work within the system to change it.
Thirdly move to somewhere else.
Fourthly wait for the system to collapse

All of which are fairly pointless. The remaining options involve going outside of the system in various ways.

History has taught us about the various barbarians and patriots bringing down the existing order.

However times change, and the rats can not only leave the sinking ship rapidly they can also take most of the "goods" with them, leaving those left behind with little or nothing.

However one thing to note is that inflation robs us of "financial wealth" but not "real wealth". Financial wealth such as money in the bank is doomed to avarice of those who create inflation (the various financial institutions).

Real wealth can be expressed in many ways one used to be the "gold standard" but other limited resource will over time usually balance inflation. As was once observed by "Mark Twain" about what we now call real estate when he advised to invest in land "as they don't make it any more".

Other things that can be thought of as inflation limiting is investment in production of various kinds, provided it is not likely to be subject to preditory technologies or countries. One such iss the current energy and mineral sources such as the petrochem industry and the related mining and refining industry. BUT you need to have a good knowledge to avoid the sharks and pit falls.

]]>
2013-03-23T14:39:01Z2013-03-23T14:39:01Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1234518Comment from drostie on 2013-03-23drostiehttp://drostie.org/
@Bruce:
I think you're missing something, or maybe a couple of things. One is a sort of "Drake equation for terrorism." There are a lot of things we can attack here -- not just the tech of the terrorists vs. our own, but the total number of terrorists, the number of opportunities per terrorist, and so on. Our real goal is to attack the total damage across all terrorists, but we can approach this by many Drake-like parameters.

The second is that terrorism, like so many other interesting things in science, follows a feedback loop: given a Standard Terrorist Unit of Damage (whatever that is) that we can ask what the expected amount of STUDs are occurring as an immediate consequence of one STUD happening today. If that number is some number K, then there will be a feedback multiplier 1/(1 - K) benefiting the terrorists. So if every attack has a 90% chance of encouraging a similar attack, then there's 1/(1 - 0.9) = 10 times the damage done per "independent" terrorist. They will moreover transition from negative to positive feedback when K goes from K 1 -- in other words, this is the apocalypse you are describing; each attack in one year damages society enough to enable and encourage 1.2 attacks the following year, suddenly we have an exponential progression of damage going like 1.2^(t / 1 year), which will eventually consume society.

So there may be other ways to mitigate the problem, and the problem of social propagation can be phrased in a much more direct language about the social effects of terrorists on other terrorists.

]]>
2013-03-23T12:30:46Z2013-03-23T12:30:46Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1233616Comment from Figureitout on 2013-03-22FigureitoutSo yes my view of the enemy is the almost faceles plutocracy that hides...
@Clive Robinson
--So, just curious. What do you suggest young people w/ maybe ~50 years of life or much less do if the majority of their economic opportunities are sucked up? I have some of my own ideas but they tend to be a bit extreme...(maybe b/c I like to be thorough).]]>
2013-03-23T03:02:54Z2013-03-23T03:02:54Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1233172Comment from tz on 2013-03-22tz
The problem is that "the police state" is antithetical to resilience.

There are two issues, first the crony capitalism so that connected security theaters are funded over something which might be effective, second that the option to respond to either intercept, mitigate, or repair the damage of a terrorist requires the availability of the same things the terrorists might use.

If there are no people with guns - and we don't have every person deputized and carrying - then the one person that has one can kill for far longer. Even on airplanes, one terrorist who gets a "big" knife through then has an advantage - if there are many who can be equally armed he might kill one but in turn be killed. The terrorists lately have been intercepted by passengers.

We are safer when all of society is adaptable, "makers", and continually and at every moment can adapt or handle exceptions. Not just the few appointed police.

(Perhaps some enlightened sheriff out in fly-over country will allow anyone who can pass a CCW or similar to be deputized with full powers of any other police).

The police find it easier to find people breaking rules, not causing threats (which might be novel or hard to recognize).

Redundancy within one organization is inefficient. But there is more than one organization, often times engaged in what from the outside looks like "wasteful competition". I believe that's what it was called back around WW1 when the Progressives took over the government and organized cartels on the theory that by eliminating redundancy, that is, "wasteful competition", they could plan efficiency.

But that, right, there, is trying to get something for nothing. Planning a dynamic system doesn't work.

Competition does work. When the power goes out, the price of generators goes up and folks come out of the woodwork to supply them at the higher price. That's why price controls guarantee shortages.

Anyway, I'm always alerted when someone says, "where do we put our money", because usually such a person is deciding how they want to spend mine. I don't want you to spend my money, you go ahead and put yours anywhere you want.

]]>
2013-03-22T18:18:19Z2013-03-22T18:18:19Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1232601Comment from John Campbell on 2013-03-22John Campbell
Resiliency is NOT economically efficient.

There, I've spoken the first heresy in a world where everyone is looking for a free lunch.

TANSTAAFL.

Economic efficiency works against redundancy (which is the first step to resilience, though no guarantee, as I've seen organizations only spec their D/R site as a "proof of concept") and, so, encourages a brittle system with "only enough capacity for [FITB]". Consider the fragility of JIT inventory, all to maximize economic efficiency and remove any warehousing of "extra" resources, be it food, medicine or the tools needed to maintain a technological civilization.

Resilience costs.

Profit margins, especially in these times, drive down the ability to staff, much less provide redundant facilities.

If we only had enough, say, hospital beds, medicines, MRI, CT, etc, capacity for "normal" demand, what happens when there's a local disaster?

So, where do we put our money?

Companies want to reward their share-holders (or, if shares are held by an "institutional investor", are pressured to cough up large dividends lest their share prices drop to penny-level) so they face divided loyalties: shareholders vs customers. In most of our current corporations, the shareholders win... and, in case you haven't noticed, customer service is no longer treated as an investment for future quarters.

(rant terminated as I noticed myself frothing at the mouth)

]]>
2013-03-22T15:52:10Z2013-03-22T15:52:10Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1232488Comment from Bob Robertson on 2013-03-22Bob Robertson
I'm sad to see responses such as by Professor Rat, because distributed systems (anarchy) is exactly what you're saying will be the most effective in building resilience. And I agree.

Crime, in general, is a distributed attack. The bad guys have the choice of when and where to attack. The only effective response is a distributed defense. To use your word, "resilience".

Sadly, the cries for someone else to "save us!", the ever tightening grip of centralized command and control, will only create targets of opportunity and single points of failure.

The more I have learned, the more of an "anarchist" I have become. Your restatement of "resilience" in terms of social tolerance of damage, your examples of losing cities, and the thousands of dead that people take as normal, are excellent.

While the people of New Orleans and New York tried to apply distributed responses to those events, the central planners stepped in and made the problems far worse. "It's not a disaster until FEMA shows up."

Anarchy. It just works better.

]]>
2013-03-22T14:48:53Z2013-03-22T14:48:53Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1232297Comment from Otter on 2013-03-22Otter
More accurately ..
Some folks believe that sanctity is possible only when motivated by fear.]]>
2013-03-22T12:29:02Z2013-03-22T12:29:02Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1232291Comment from Otter on 2013-03-22Otter
The legal justification for burning to death witches (and protestants) (and catholics) after they had confessed and repented of their sins was that if they were not immediately dispatched to heaven in overwhelming pain and fear, they might recant, thus losing their opportunity for eternal bliss.

Some folks believe that sanctity is possible under the influence of fear.

One defect of fear is that the newly blessed, unless watched closely, may recant and seek to turn against their benefactors.

Empirically, the human psyche cannot live long in constant fear. Eventualy, it either seeks release in oblivion, or forgets and deviates.

Although labels like "crazy" are popular propaganda, insurgents are more sane than those who submit.

The only wealth that really matters economically is the ability to compel others to obey.

Some people with damaged psyches fear that others will not obey and therefore demand proofs such as symbols of subservience. Some are so badly damaged as to crave proofs such as submission to pain and death.

So as I said.... It all kinda depends on who you think of as the bad guys...

It is a question I've thought about off and on for a number of years (you could call it one of my vices, as it's an activity I don't profit out of ;-)

Well my conclusion for some time is it's the "voice behind the throne".

A little observation and digging will show that we don't live in a democracy, that is we seldom if ever get to vote on substantive issues (that's why we give them special names such as "referendum"). What we actualy live in is called a "representational democracy" but a moments thought will make most people realise it is neither democratic or representational of the voters.

A little further thought will make people realisee that the "monkey see monkey do" nature of our (supposadly) freely elected representatives makes them a captive and very lucrative audiance to those with money.

Now an examination of wealth distribution clearly shows that it is steadily migrating to a very few people who are subject to special tax deals that they have purchased the votes for. On average those at the bottom of the middle classes pay 50% of what they earn in taxation, as you move up the proportion of tax actually starts to decrease (as excess income becomes available for saving/investment). At certain points certain types of tax breaks apply and those with the greatest excess income in effect pay very small fractions of normal tax on their incomes.

Now the fun thing is these very few people (around 400 or so in the US) are actually not interested in making or accumulating wealth, they are beyond the point where their wealth has any meaning other than the status and influance it can buy them.

What scares them the most is the loss of status and influance. They would not care if they actually did not make any money provided everybody else was lossing it faster.

Thus their actual intent is not wealth generation but maintaining or increasing the "status gap". It is very clear when you study some of the machinations the likes of the Koch brothers and others get upto that what they realy want is a "fielty system" back where status is enforced by law almost as a cast or serf system (which is actualy worse than slavery). They would dearly love to go back to the times of a few hundred years ago where people were required on pain of tourture and death to dress in a way befiting the status those above them said they had, such that the staus gap was seen at all times.

So yes my view of the enemy is the almost faceles plutocracy that hides behind the presidents throne, biding it's time and weakening others rights bit by bit by buying influance over those elected officials that are supposed to impartialy wield power as the representatives of the voters...

]]>
2013-03-22T10:39:57Z2013-03-22T10:39:57Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1231633Comment from RobertT on 2013-03-21RobertT
"For the most part, though, society still wins. The bad guys simply can't do enough damage to destroy the underlying social system. The question for us is: can society still maintain security as technology becomes more advanced?"

IMHO It sort of depends on who you think of as the bad guys.

As technology advances there is more scope to both hide and discover information. I was recently back in the US and was alarmed at the lengths I needed to go to to get $5000 cash from the bank.

In this day and age I certainly dont think of $5000 as a large sum of money, it was to support my last remaining vice Poker. Yet my requests for $5000 cash from my bank met with alarm and advisement that this would be reported, and most likely result in my account being locked. by one or other Federal institution.

This was my WTF is wrong with the US moment. On many occasions I have withdrawn cash amounts upward of 300K RMB (about $50K USD) from my Chinese accounts without anyone even flinching. (same end use as in the US)

So as I said.... It all kinda depends on who you think of as the bad guys....

It has a relevant component "L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space"

L is actual considered to be about 200years and the original idea was that it was the time taken for technology to shift from high power radio (capable of leaving a solar system) to the use of fiber optics and low power radio etc.

It has since been recognised that what we should be looking for is very low frequency radiation below around 500Hz as this is likely to be the strongesst power signiture for the longesst time (ie the radiation caused by "AC power transmission systems"). However this has problems which would involve putting "efficient receivers" at the edge of our solar system.

To give you an idea of one problem, you are looking at an antenna of something like 0.6x10^8 meters in length in each dimension.

The US UK and other countries were invited in to Afghanistan to deal with a problem, which they have singularly failed to do.

There is a reason Afghanistan is called "The graveyard of the invaders"

]]>
2013-03-22T02:32:16Z2013-03-22T02:32:16Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1231217Comment from Bill Stewart on 2013-03-21Bill Stewart
Steven Hoober - That ceramic handgun looks really decorative on the mantelpiece in Act I. Whether it actually gets fired in Act III isn't something the Security Theater Players know at the time, but it gives them their motivation for whatever story you're trying to tell.]]>
2013-03-21T23:18:09Z2013-03-21T23:18:09Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1231190Comment from jbee on 2013-03-21jbee
I see the word "terrorist" being thrown around in these comments with the implication that they are somehow mindless irrational killing machines bent on the destruction of civilization as part of their nature. Stop it. Their paradigm may differ from yours, but within that paradigm they are as rational as any human, and probably more so. In the US, terrorist bogeymen are derided as irrational cowards, but how would YOU fight a vastly stronger opponent? Face them on their terms and be crushed? How rational is that? How about striking them where they aren't looking using their own wealth against them? Sounds like those scrappy underdog heroes we love to root for if you ask me. ]]>
2013-03-21T23:02:52Z2013-03-21T23:02:52Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1231172Comment from itgrrl on 2013-03-21itgrrlhttp://itgrrl.com/
@Winter:The fundamental flaw in this analysis is the parasite's curse:
If the parasite wins, it kills its host and itself. If the terrorists win, they will go down with the society they destruct.

...which works well as an evolutionary pressure to control the blind actions of an organism acting out of instinct. It's not at all useful in a situation where an intelligent (?) actor makes a conscious choice that destroying the 'host' (in this case, all of human civilization) is either irrelevant or desirable because of an imagined reward in an afterlife.^ What do such people care if the 'host' is destroyed? They're heading to the promised land.

^I'm sure there are other motivators - including just plain craziness - that could create a similar scenario, but ideological fundamentalism seems to be the most prevalent instance of it today.

]]>
2013-03-21T22:49:30Z2013-03-21T22:49:30Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1231108Comment from vv111y on 2013-03-21vv111yhttps://twitter.com/vv111y
Hi Bruce, I'm very happy to see your level of thoughtfulness and concern.
If systems do well it is a cold comfort for individuals who suffer and lose regardless.
I've been thinking recently about a consequence of our very large population: We could have the largest genocide in history, numbering in the billions, and yet civilization could go on quite well. (As long as it is not the 'torchbearers of civilization' who die).
A disturbing thought. ]]>
2013-03-21T22:13:02Z2013-03-21T22:13:02Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230736Comment from John Hardin on 2013-03-21John Hardinhttp://www.impsec.org/~jhardin/
@David W:

We've done ... lousy against the psychological damage.

This seems to me an unavoidable consequence of the increasing degree we're wrapping our children in bubble-wrap as they grow up. Compare the degree of psychological damage the US suffered from the Pearl Harbor attack (which, granted, wasn't an attack on civilians).

If you protect your children from any possible harm they may experience, no matter how trivial, you're not raising them to be resilient in the face of hardship.

]]>
2013-03-21T18:42:56Z2013-03-21T18:42:56Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230688Comment from David Wilhite on 2013-03-21David Wilhite
Seems to me we need to be both resilient and antifragile.

In the context of terrorism, a society that is resilient would withstand the damage and bounce back. We've done well against the physical damage, but lousy against the psychological damage. We can rebuild buildings and even populations (pardon the emotional detachment here). But we also have the larger damage of fear dividing us and causing us to do stupid things with our resources (and lives). So we have shown little resilience. Bin Laden was reportedly pleased to have such a large destructive impact on our resources and psychology. If society quickly rebuilds physically and psychologically, the terrorist’s reward of destruction is diminished.

A society that is antifragile might be one that responds to terrorist actions by uniting against the instigators. We did OK uniting against the terrorists, but then totally blew it with all the infighting on side issues. If societal bonds improve instead of decay, the terrorist’s reward of societal decay is removed.

]]>
2013-03-21T18:10:42Z2013-03-21T18:10:42Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230607Comment from Jordan Brown on 2013-03-21Jordan Brown
As an extreme example: the (unintended) result of efforts like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries will be to put civilization-killing capabilities into human (fallible, malicious, even suicidal) hands.]]>
2013-03-21T17:19:57Z2013-03-21T17:19:57Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230599Comment from John Hardin on 2013-03-21John Hardinhttp://www.impsec.org/~jhardin/
This essay is written from the POV that attackers=individual bad actors (or small groups thereof) and defenders=society.

I'd be interesting in seeing a version written from the POV that defenders=the people and attackers=the government.

Interplanetary colonization buys some resilience for a time, assuming we're willing to occasionally sacrifice an entire colony. But even then it may not be a complete solution. If technology ever advances to the point where a crazy person could destroy the entire solar system, or indeed the entire universe (or just all the colonies), the existential problem comes right back.

The problem is that it's not balanced: Attackers generally benefit from new security technologies before defenders do.

Yes but it may not gain them any significant advantage.

The US UK and other countries were invited in to Afghanistan to deal with a problem, which they have singularly failed to do.

Over simplisticaly Afghanistan is in some ways two countries in one such is the cultural divide between those living in large towns and cities on one side and those living in villages and the country side on the other.

Those the west recognise politicaly are those of the towns and cities. Those in the vilages and country side thus regard the West's soldiers as the attackers.

Now using the logic of "technological superiority" those in the vilages and country side should have been disarmed and neutralized within a very short period.

However Afghanistan has proved historicaly over and over again that "technological superiority" is not actually effective against certain types of enemy. We refere to this as "asymmetric warfare", and it is finaly being recognised as an insoluble issue.

What 9/11 revealed and I mentioned it back at the time is "technological superiority" is in some respects an Achilles Heal. What the 9/11 events showed is those that create a technology develop a significant reliance on it and that anyone who then turns the technology on that society cause that society to go in fear of what further harm it's technology can do against it's self.

Worse is that since 9/11 in the US the political leaders have done almost everything they can to make the "technological superiority" nightmare come true on those living in the US.

We now have the quite genuine fear that the product of failing to quell the asymmetric warfare will be turned on the citizens with armed drones and the like flying above cities.

The lesson the WASP nations has failed to learn is that you cannot really win against an enemy who in effect has nothing to lose by fighting, when those in the nations have the fear of lossing everything they have gained from technilogical superiority.

In effect the higher you make your castle walls the further you have to fall when an intent enemy undermines the foundations of those walls.

]]>
2013-03-21T16:13:38Z2013-03-21T16:13:38Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230515Comment from bcs on 2013-03-21bcs
As far from feasible as it is, interplanetary colonization could well be the easiest solution to this problem.]]>
2013-03-21T16:10:12Z2013-03-21T16:10:12Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230499Comment from vasiliy pupkin on 2013-03-21vasiliy pupkin
@Miramon
I agree with you. The root cause of conflicts and their fair civilized resolution should be the primary target, not technology (guns included) which is only tool, not the cause.
When such system of conflict resolution exists, you still can't prevent actions of crazy person (with no motive or reason) towards innocent people, but you could prevent acts of retributions, assimetric attacks just to restore jenerally imbedded in ANY human being sense of balance/ fairness/responsibilty when system is not working or is working to protect mainly 1% minority of population. ]]>
2013-03-21T16:05:37Z2013-03-21T16:05:37Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230464Comment from Andrew2 on 2013-03-21Andrew2
@Hugo

It may be idealistic but what about just keeping up the battle for a better society...

By "better society" I think you mean moral and social controls rather than formal or technological controls.

The problem is those don't scale. You can only shame people into not destroying the world when society is small enough that members can be made to feel shame. When numbers of people in a single society get big enough eventually you'll get an outlier, an omnicidal maniac who is immune to social pressures and just wants to destroy everything. If anyone can build a doomsday device in their garage, you have to stop this person from doing it somehow or civilization will end.

Thus not having a desire to be part of a herd makes life a tads difficult under the "Either you are with us or against us" mentality of mob rule.

Which unfortunatly appears to be coming more prevalent in Europe these days especialy in cheap shot politico's looking to score easy "sound bite" credability with those who either cannot or who do not care to think, but just play "follow my leader".

Thus we are showing the same signs and symptoms we saw eighty years ago...

]]>
2013-03-21T15:40:23Z2013-03-21T15:40:23Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230452Comment from Miramon on 2013-03-21Miramon
Increasing societal resilience is fine, but it's clearly a stopgap, as indeed was pointed out in the post.

It will be more important to improve humanity itself to the point that these attacks are not conducted in the first place. Whether that improvement occurs through technology (genetic engineering, posthuman singularity blah blah blah), policy and economics (abolishing scarcity), or sociology (eliminating the causes of conflict), it has to happen one way or another or we will eventually destroy ourselves.

The fact that all of the means to "improve humanity" are equally implausible at this point is not very encouraging.

]]>
2013-03-21T15:37:31Z2013-03-21T15:37:31Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230432Comment from Winter on 2013-03-21Winter
We have been there several times.

With the invention of the bridle came horseback warfare. This "destroyed" all early agricultural societies in Europe. And the waves kept coming (huns, mongolians, turks).

The same with ocean faring sailboats. The Vikings all but destroyed coastal societies and overtook Great Britain.

The solution has always been bigger and tighter communities that could raise bigger armies and better control rogue groups. States did not grow bigger and more powerful for nothing.

The fundamental flaw in this analysis is the parasite's curse:
If the parasite wins, it kills its host and itself. If the terrorists win, they will go down with the society they destruct.

Right, yeah, if by "nobodies" (sic) you mean a small and particularly stupid percentage of the community.

]]>
2013-03-21T14:36:04Z2013-03-21T14:36:04Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230314Comment from John Campbell on 2013-03-21John Campbell
Consider that terrorism is merely an effort to tamper with a key product: Civilization.

Civilization only persists when there can be some form of trust between people. As trust dissolves, so shall civilization, which may balkanize into far more insular sub-cultures with little trust outside a memetic "herd".

Humans have not thrown off the herd/pack drives completely; When on the offense, we form packs, and, when on the defensive, we lean towards forming herds... even if only at the memetic level.

It is easier to trust those who display the same memetic values as ourselves; The other things-- race, creed, ethnicity, has had a tendency to drive people together, but this is being damaged by the knowledge that such relationships based on appearance (for instance) cannot be deemed trustworthy.

(The above example of Stand-Up Philosophy has been brought to you by the letters 'F' and 'U' and the number '2'.)

]]>
2013-03-21T14:28:11Z2013-03-21T14:28:11Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230253Comment from Hugo on 2013-03-21Hugo
It may be idealistic but what about just keeping up the battle for a better society (globally) so that the bad guys become/remain such a small minority that the damage they do remains small even if with superior technology.]]>
2013-03-21T13:47:50Z2013-03-21T13:47:50Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230246Comment from TK on 2013-03-21TK
Have you considered using some of these ideas in a movie script?]]>
2013-03-21T13:45:19Z2013-03-21T13:45:19Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230243Comment from anon on 2013-03-21anon
Resilience is a property of 'the whole'. Anti-fragility seems to be more of a function of the whole.]]>
2013-03-21T13:44:44Z2013-03-21T13:44:44Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230235Comment from Mike Helmke on 2013-03-21Mike Helmke
Very good analysis. Comforting to have kind of a solution offered.
The bible says "and the system will require everybody to wear a mark on his hand or forehead", and try to kill all who reject it." No more cash, everybody linked to the system, that sounds like perfect security! ]]>
2013-03-21T13:43:02Z2013-03-21T13:43:02Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230232Comment from Steven Hoober on 2013-03-21Steven Hooberhttp://www.4ourth.com
Except no one has created a ceramic handgun, and I fail to see why I'd want one anyway.

But sure. Whatever.

]]>
2013-03-21T13:40:22Z2013-03-21T13:40:22Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230230Comment from Simon on 2013-03-21Simon
@professor_rat
There you are, I wondered where you went. Still living in exile? What ever happened to that 'death ray' invention of yours??
A friend of mine once said 'Some people just want to watch the world burn.']]>
2013-03-21T13:38:49Z2013-03-21T13:38:49Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230183Comment from Autolykos on 2013-03-21Autolykos
@Frank Conley: I doubt such a system would even be possible except for a small system maintained by a much larger (and still fragile) outer system, and probably at the cost of making the outer system even more fragile. Anything else seems to violate thermodynamics.
So we could, in theory, make our government (or perhaps even the police) "antifragile", but that could not benefit society as a whole. And since those entities are means and not ends, why should we even care?]]>
2013-03-21T13:13:12Z2013-03-21T13:13:12Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230174Comment from professor rat on 2013-03-21professor rathttp://Blurty.buttdarling
Bruce, Bruce, Bruce. Why not stick to what you know ( crypto) and leave anarchy to the anarchists?
No ones going to miss religion and the nation-state and nobodies going to miss handwringing cop-lovers like you and Bruce Sterling.
You really suck at this sort of commentary.]]>
2013-03-21T13:07:24Z2013-03-21T13:07:24Ztag:www.schneier.com,2013:/blog//2.4746-comment:1230112Comment from Frank Conley on 2013-03-21Frank Conley
You wrote:

If security won't work in the end, what is the solution?
Resilience -- building systems able to survive unexpected and devastating attacks -- is the best answer we have right now.

~~

I would counter that we need systems that are not just resilient, but antifragile*. This may require a change in context for how we see and use technology, and based on the evidence (both empirical and historic) I've seen so far, it will require some event to spark that change.